Both the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times are reporting about a supposed truce between Fox News Channel and MSNBC brokered by top News Corp. and General Electric executives.

Although I've long advocated that the two sides exercise some restraint in their increasingly heated war of rhetoric -- which has come to resemble the HBO movie "Weapons of Mass Distraction" -- let's just say I'll completely believe it when I see it. Hell, even corporate behemoths might discover that when it comes to star personalities, creating monsters is easier than controlling them.

At the source of the fracas are MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and FNC's Bill O'Reilly. Having been made the butt of Olbermann's barbs for the last several years, the thin-skinned O'Reilly has become increasingly venomous in leveling counter-attacks at NBC News and GE, clearly hoping to retaliate against those who employ his tormentor. (The odd part is that while Olbermann mentions O'Reilly almost nightly -- regularly naming him "The worst person in the world" -- O'Reilly will never stoop, in his view, to utter Olbermann's name.)

Olbermann has been off the last couple of weeks, but via email he told the New York Times' Brian Stelter that he was "party to no deal." Without Olbermann agreeing to dial back his invective toward O'Reilly, it's hard to imagine a unilateral cessation by Fox.

At least marginally toning down the vitriol would be a step in the right direction. It's gotten to the point where the opposing sides have come close to accusing the other of murder -- O'Reilly maintaining that GE is contributing to the death of Americans by doing business with Iran, Olbermann by alleging that O'Reilly's frequent reports about George Tiller, a doctor who performed abortions, helped lead to his killing. Urging them to play a little nicer hardly seems out of line.

Thanks in part to Lou Dobbs and his pigheaded insistence on flogging the "birther" movement questioning President Obama's origins, both networks seem to agree on at least one thing -- sharing a common contempt for CNN, albeit not for the same reasons.

Given the overheated, conflict-driven climate in the talk/opinion space from which these networks have handsomely profited, it's difficult to squeeze the genie back into the bottle. About the best the bosses can hope for, perhaps, is trading in one bogeyman for another.

Update: Salon's Glenn Greenwald zeroes in on the most disturbing aspect of the story: That GE would seek to muzzle Olbermann (and potentially other MSNBC hosts) in order to protect its corporate interests. By that measure, O'Reilly's retaliatory assault on GE Chairman Jeffrey Immelt and NBC News -- one often characterized by distortions and unsubstantiated allegations -- will have paid off. Indeed, O'Reilly has transparently gone after GE specifically to bring about this sort of concession.

The real question, yet to be determined, is how the supposed "truce" will work in practice -- and whether Olbermann can abide by the restrictions. If it's strictly a matter of toning down or dialing back his commentary -- as opposed to eliminating criticism of FNC -- that falls under the heading of the network exercising editorial discretion over its talent. MSNBC brass has a right to ask that O'Reilly bashing no longer need be a nightly occurrence. The motives might be venal, but it's not unheard of, which is why CNN is receiving such well-deserved criticism for behaving as if it has no control over what comes tumbling out of Dobbs' mouth, just as Fox merits criticism for Glenn Beck's more unhinged statements.

On the flip side, it's hard to envision Olbermann (who is scheduled to return from his vacation next week) accepting an order to completely expunge references to O'Reilly or Fox News from his coverage simply to take the heat off of GE. If that's really what's happening here, this is a much more serious issue.

There's no light at the end of the tunnel yet on Michael Jackson lunacy, as CBS just announced that Katie Couric will be anchoring "The CBS Evening News" from the Staples Center July 6-7 in order to cover the Jackson memorial on the second day. In addition, "The Early Show" will also be originating from the Staples Center, and one suspects the other morning shows -- already up to their elbows in Jackson coverage -- will dive right in as well.

Of course, the last time there was a major event surrounding Staples it was the post-championship unrest and looting that ensued after the Lakers won the NBA championship in June. I've never heard of a post-memorial service riot, but inasmuch as this is Los Angeles, the local authorities should be put on tactical alert. As for those wondering who would go downtown to honor Jackson in the middle of a weekday, with disproportionately high unemployment rates in the L.A. area, the crowd will likely spill out of Staples (the capacity for Lakers games is about 19,000) and into the surrounding plaza. My advice is to stay as far away as possible unless you have to be there or near there.

Meanwhile, Jackson media mania is approaching comical heights, even prompting John Stossel to criticize ABC News -- as the website mediabistro.com/tvnewser noted -- for bumping one of his "20/20" pieces to make additional room for the Jackson story. As sick as I am of all things Jackson, bumping ABC's resident swaggering blowhard is the kind of collateral damage a fella could get used to.

This Jackson carpet-bombing illustrates the major difference between print and television. On the latter, the obsession with a tabloid oddity like this can squeeze practically everything else off the air. In print, at least there's still room for other stories, though admittedly, you'd scarcely notice that from reading the Los Angeles Times -- a.k.a. TMZ Spring St. -- which has seemingly committed to keeping Jackson on the front page above the fold every day until Sam Zell sprouts a full head of hair.

As for Couric, it's certainly easy to rationalize devoting so many resources to a story that's so good for business -- witness the Christmas-in-July ratings spike for "Nightline" last week, which averaged more viewers than either of the latenight talkshows -- but I suspect we'll all be looking back on this circus a few months from now with the same level of embarrassment and derision that followed the shark-attack summer of 2001.

Of course, we all know what happened in September of that year. Let's just hope we don't have to wait for something truly terrible to happen again to deliver another wake-up call.

Remember last November, when newspapers were flying off racks and broadcast news ratings soared because of the election of Barack Obama?

To quote those "Bruno" ads, that was so 2008.

The media remains fascinated with Obama, all right, but it still can't resist its tabloid cravings for illicit affairs, shark attacks and freak shows such as the one represented by the later years in the life and now death of Michael Jackson.

Nearly a week after Jackson's death, the story is still dominating cable news, network morning shows and even key newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, which seems to have seized on "owning" the Jackson story by keeping it on the front page every day as its latest bid to save the struggling Tribune-owned franchise.

Unfortunately, such coverage is better suited to TMZ.com and other outlets that are more comfortable wading through celebrity trashcans -- no slap at them, by the way (as I've noted in an earlier post, it's Harvey Levin's world now; we just live in it), but a mere statement of fact.

There was "Nightline" on Tuesday, trying to cover the Jackson story without getting its hands dirty by running a puffy profile of TMZ mastermind Levin. "We use the same principles that 'Nightline' uses," Levin said earnestly, but I couldn't help thinking that the reality was a little closer to the other way around -- that "Nightline" has inched closer to TMZ's celebrity-crazed mix.

Like the shark attack mania and Chandra Levy-Gary Condit coverage that dominated the news in the summer before the Sept. 11 attacks, Jackson's death occurred after Memorial Day, when network primetime is free and easy. In fact, it's considerably freer and easier today than it was when the decade began, what with network ratings at historic lows, making a hasty news special look infinitely preferable to rerunning "Private Practice" or burning off episodes of "The Unusuals." (Even leading anchors have gotten into the act, with Katie Couric fronting "Michael Jackson: Picking Up the Pieces" under the "48 Hours" banner on CBS.)

Let's face it, documenting the unfolding events in Iran -- especially with the government cracking down on journalists -- and explaining the Obama administration's effort to reform health care is complicated and difficult. And South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford simply isn't known well enough on the national stage to compete with a personality like Jackson, though as Stephen Colbert noted earlier this week, the Republican would have been even luckier had he publicly admitted cheating on his wife one day later.

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism summed up the obvious with its running tally of news coverage (excerpted below), and I have a feeling the figures for the current week will be even more jaw-dropping, if sadly predictable.

Bottom line: When it comes to feeding the media beast, even Obama and Iran currently can't lay a hand on the gloved one.

In Just Two Days, Jackson’s Passing Nearly Passes Iran in the News of the Week

 With unrest in Iran and a new political scandal, the media had its pick of stories to report on the week of June 22-28. But by week’s end, the death of Michael Jackson quickly dominated the media agenda, according to a report by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Early last week, ongoing attention to protests over the Iranian election continued to dominate the news narrative, and by week’s end Iran filled 19% of the newshole, making it still the No. 1 topic of the week. But much of that came early. Indeed, in the first two days of the week, nearly a third of all coverage (31%) was devoted to events in the country. But as the protest movement moved underground, and the story became harder to cover, coverage subsided. By Wednesday attention shifted to the third biggest story of the week—the controversy around South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who admitted to an extra-marital affair after having gone missing for several days (11%).

But it was the late Thursday afternoon reports that Michael Jackson had died that captured the essence of the media narrative last week. The passing of the “King of Pop” was the No. 2 story last week, accounting for 18% of the newshole. From the time of the announcement of his death through the end of day Friday, more than 28 hours (60% of news coverage studied) was dedicated to Jackson’s passing. Cable news led the coverage, devoting 93% of airtime to the icon on Thursday and Friday. The story captured 55% of online coverage and 37% of front-page newspaper coverage. All other stories vied for attention amidst the biggest celebrity story in a decade.

Memo to: Patrick Goldstein

From: Brian Lowry

Dear Patrick:

I know our paths seldom crossed during my days at the Los Angeles Times, but then again, whose path have you crossed over there? As I recall, from the moment former managing editor John Lindsay hired you, you couldn't be bothered to produce more than one feature-like column a week and made a point of never coming into the office. Now you have this blog, "The Big Picture," so I'm thrilled to see a newspaper that has laid off more than half its staff since I left in 2003 has finally dictated that you squeeze out more than 800 words a week.

Anyway, I hope this new workload isn't over-taxing you, but it does seem to have made you increasingly petulant. Hell, you actually had to watch the Oscars this year, as opposed to sitting at home TiVo-ing through it, as you boasted about doing in 2008. Oh, the humanity.

By the way, I'm not bitter about the fact that my Tribune stock shriveled from a nest egg to a bite of omelet by the time I had to cash it in, when Sam Zell and his merry band took over. OK, maybe I'm a little bitter, but that's not why I'm writing this, so I'll get to the point.

After 20 years overseeing Variety, Peter Bart surely requires no defense from me, although I've never seen a guy juggle more jobs and still possess the energy to have read every major newspaper by the time you first see him in the morning. But I do resent your constant lament that Variety is full of nothing but flattering blather, never biting the entertainment industry hands that feed us (not as well as they once did, but that crumb of bad news is hardly unique among newspapers, I'm sorry to say).

Hey, I understand the whole joke about the trades "Taking three minutes to read, and three hours to recover from," as a writer once said. But speaking for myself, I have never been forced to soft-peddle anything in a column or review in the time I've been here. Moreover, I suspect if you spoke with anybody associated with movies or TV programs that our criticism and analysis is considered as tough and fair as any out there. It should also be noted that Variety breaks plenty of news and identifies trends that your paper and others seem to have no qualms about following.

For all that, I have no problem with criticism. In fact, I'm a big believer in being able to take it as well as you dish it out. In this case, what really irks me is the source. So let me ask: Exactly what hard-hitting, Woodward-and-Bernstein-style exposes have you produced lately? Let's see, there was that valentine to "Fast & Furious" producer Neal Moritz a few weeks ago; and this week's column was devoted to a soft feature about the casting process for a key role in director John Lee Hancock's latest movie, which has yet to begin production.

Somehow, I suspect these efforts won't compel the Pulitzer committee to work overtime.

Anyway, good luck with the whole blogging thing. Feeding that beast is exhausting, as I've learned in just the short time I've been doing this; still, as long as you keep trying to establish feuds with people who generate more traffic than you do, maybe one day "The Big Picture" will actually live up to its billing.

Considering that the Los Angeles Times subjected itself to another public-relations snafu over the NBC drama "Southland" -- a new series about the LAPD -- I wondered how the show performed locally, and whether the payoff was worth all the mess.

Just to recap, the Times aired an L-shaped front-page ad for the program with a mock "news" story in it, causing another mini-revolt in the newsroom, where a petition of complaint was circulated. Other news outlets -- including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, along with Variety and TV Week -- weighed in with stories about the ad's propriety, and rest assured, there's nothing Times staffers love more than being called on the carpet by media ethicists in the New York Times.

So how did this L.A.-centric show -- about a police force whose image has gone through some very non-"Dragnet"-like ups and downs through the years -- fare in the L.A. market? Quite well. The premiere delivered a 5.3 rating -- meaning that percentage of homes in the viewing area tuned in -- and a 10 share (or the percentage of TV sets in use), beating CBS' launch of the horror serial "Harper's Island" (a 4.4 rating). By way of comparison, that surpasses the three episodes of "ER" leading up to its highly rated finale, with those hours (which included a ratings-boosting guest shot by George Clooney) averaging a 4.3 rating.

"Southland" also performed well nationally, attracting 9.9 million viewers and winning its hour among the key demo of adults age 18-49, based on Nielsen estimates [ note: these figures are updated to reflect final national data ]. "Harper's Island" (10.2 million) ranked first in overall viewing, but it had the benefit of a "CSI" lead-in, and unlike "Southland" -- which gained viewers as it went on -- dropped from its first to its second half-hour.

Those results put "Southland" comfortably in the high range of "ER's" ratings chart toward the end of its run. Of course, ABC's "Private Practice" was a rerun, as was "Grey's Anatomy," so the competitive landscape will become more challenging going forward. Even so, the opening-night returns are pretty good for NBC, which can certainly use a ray of sunshine. As for the Times' contribution to the show's marketing, probably not so much.

Front-page ads are an increasingly common fact of life as the embattled newspaper industry grasps for lifelines, but the main problem with the Los Angeles Times' ad for the new NBC drama "Southland" (as documented by my colleague Michael Schneider) is that the faux news story execution looks so absurdly cheesy and amateurish.

Why splash an ad on the front page for a classy, high-quality drama that half looks like one of those cut-rate products offering a cure for erectile dysfunction?

It's also interesting that the Times appears more willing to push the ad-editorial envelope than my old alma mater, UCLA, where students at the Daily Bruin publicly lamented their need to slap advertising on the front page. And that's a place where (assuming things haven't changed much since I was there) they barely pay most of the staff. If this keeps up, don't be surprised if USC breaks down and strikes the inevitable product-placement deal with a certain brand of condom.

Set in Los Angeles and focusing on the LAPD, "Southland" has an inordinately strong connection to L.A., so it might qualify as a kind of exception for the Times. Still, the Daily Bruin editorial summed up the discomfort that journalists tend to feel as such barriers keep falling amid our employers' increasingly desperate attempts to generate revenue, saying, "Our hope is that our readers will not dismiss us as the sell-outs we feel like."

Out of the mouths of (relative) babes.

Although I recognize that newspapers are desperate to generate reaction these days, you have to wonder about the Los Angeles Times op-ed editors who opted not to challenge the bone-headed assertions in Andrew Klavan's latest demonstration that he is not particularly bright -- an op-ed piece titled "Take the Limbaugh Challenge," which concludes that nobody who criticizes Rush Limbaugh actually listens to him.

Klavan, just to refresh your memory, is the same guy who wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed, "What Bush and Batman Have in Common," which concluded that the popularity of "The Dark Knight" was in fact an endorsement of the Bush administration's handling of the war against terrorism, calling the movie "a paean of praise" to the former Commander in Chief. It made you wonder if he actually sat all the way through it, but let's not get sidetracked in past stupidity.

Klavan starts out with a howler -- namely, that you couldn't possibly read the LA Times unless you were a bleeding-heart liberal from the get-go. He then proceeds to "the certainty" that if you disagree with the syndicated radio host, "You've never listened to Rush Limbaugh."

For the record, I listen to Limbaugh quite a lot, and I recognize that he can be entertaining and that some of his more outlandish statements are obviously exaggerated for effect. Nevertheless, even moderates can find plenty in Limbaugh's overheated, alarmist rhetoric that's offensive, which is precisely why Democrats are doing everything they can to make him the voice of the Republican Party. It's also why Limbaugh has become so indispensable to his core audience, since he can be more impolitic in demonizing liberals than most politicians dare to be.

Like other conservative talking heads, Limbaugh also has a vested interest in discrediting competing sources of information, which is a powerful marketing tool. In essence, personalities like Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck bond themselves to their audience with a pitch that you can't trust newspapers and the major networks, which is perhaps why Klavan makes the assumption that only a liberal could possibly endure reading the Times. I wonder how he feels about Democrats reading the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal or watching Fox News.

Klavan claims he listens to Limbaugh all the time and has "never heard the man utter a single racist, hateful or stupid word." This only proves what I already suspected -- namely, that Klavan is either conveniently or situationally deaf, or as the Batman piece already suggested, doesn't have much operating between his ears.

News Corp. Chief Rupert Murdoch has gotten a lot of crap from all the expected quarters regarding his love of newspapers, but as someone who works in print, it's just kind of nice to see anybody exhibit that kind of enthusiasm for the medium.

As Variety reported, Murdoch -- undaunted by the drag that the Wall Street Journal has been inflicting on News Corp.'s balance sheet -- might be interested in making a play for the Los Angeles Times, which continues to suffer under the stewardship of the bankruptcy-declaring, ax-wielding, journalism-hating Sam Zell's Tribune Co.

Analysts, of course, hate the idea, but as a veteran Murdoch watcher, I've always been impressed by his willingness to tell them to bugger off, pursuing assets with true synergy in mind that could potentially yield 2 + 2 = 5 -type benefits. Then again, that's in part because he understands the ability of (and isn't afraid to use) media assets to pummel enemies and reward friends, underscored by his stewardship of the New York Post.

In some respects, a dismal stock price might actually be liberating for Murdoch. With virtually every studio's stock in the tank, he can pursue bigger-picture endeavors, gambling that they'll pay off down the road, if not necessarily in the next quarterly earnings report.

Granted, this might all be a bad idea, but at a time when the media business is in such a state of flux, it could also be an opportunistic stroke of genius. Either way, as someone working in a seemingly dying profession -- watching newspapers commit the equivalent of slow-motion suicide -- it's interesting to see a media mogul wonder if the unabated demand for print content, and its disproportionate influence over the lazy electronic media, possesses unseen (or at least underrated) value.

Contemplating all this in the context of Murdoch's commitment to advance his children throughthe ranks of his company -- even if that meant losing an able lieutenant like Peter Chernin -- leaves me asking just one question: Rupert, whether or not this Times thing pans out, is it OK if I call you dad?

As a columnist I enjoy reading other columnists, especially those off my beat covering entertainment.

Just perusing the New York Times, I admire the way David Brooks constructs an argument (even when I disagree with them) and how cleverly Gail Collins turns a phrase. Nobody hammers a public figure quite like Frank Rich (though his targets are a trifle predictable), and on the days when she's good (which unfortunately occur with less and less frequency), no one is better than Maureen Dowd. Nicholas Kristof spurs feelings of inferiority, mostly because he has no fear of going places that appear to be dangerous hellholes.

By contrast, I'm frequently irked by those who seem to have no memory of what they've written before. That's one reason I won't miss WIlliam Kristol (whose shortcomings at the Times were well documented by Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell) and can't stand LA Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke.

Closer to home both geographically and in terms of subject matter, for some time now I've been annoyed by Joel Stein's column in the Los Angeles Times. But I didn't really understand the intensity of my reaction until I started writing this blog and was forced to differentiate between blog-worthy and column-worthy material.

Stein can occasionally be funny, even if the whole horny-married-guy, please-please-please-hire-me-to-write-for-a-sitcom shtick quickly wears thin. But what really bothers me about his work is that none of the ideas seem to have the weight to sustain a column. They're more like random musings str-et-ch-ed to column length.

Stein has a sort of loose theme -- our celebrity-obsessed culture -- but he goes at it in the most banal way possible. Let's goof on Ashton Kutcher for being a movie star. Let's goof on actors by auditioning for a sitcom. His latest gem is perfectly emblematic of the problem -- seeking to feebly approach the current financial crisis by filtering our economic woes through the easiest of cultural targets, a rapper named Plies, who gaudily throws cash around.

Somehow every column keeps cycling back to Stein's favorite subject -- Joel Stein, and finding employment opportunities for Joel Stein. Yet the Times' opinion editors are apparently so out of touch they view this as hip and edgy.

Granted, there are all kinds of columnists, and not all of them have to be serious and weighty. (I like to think of myself as weighty in the literal sense -- or maybe just big-boned -- but only occasionally serious.) Some will doubtless assume I'm picking a fight with another sort-of journalist to drive traffic, and while I'm probably not above that, that's honestly not the motivation. I just hate to see prime newspaper real estate (yes, I'm naive enough to assume there is still such a thing) squandered. And maybe I'm a little more sensitive because with so many former colleagues out of work, it's harder to justify the print equivalent of "Paul Blart: Mall Cop."

Besides, I have this blog now, and it needs to be fed -- even with this kind of passing thought, which does not, by any means, merit a column.